Let’s get one thing out of the way, right off the bat. This movie is a mess. A total and absolute mess. Now, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but I’d venture to guess that nearly everyone that enjoys it does not enjoy it in the way that the film makers intended. I mean, I don’t think it was supposed to be a comedy, let alone a comedy in which the few one-liners delivered didn’t solicit any laughter at all. There is literally no way that my review could impart upon your brain the level of confusion that you feel from actually watching, but I’ll do my best. So take a seat by the fire, children, and let me tell you a story of scene theft, rock karate, awkward smiles, and a wizard named Nimrod (I swear I’m not making that name up).
The movie begins with blatantly stolen Star Wars footage. Like, a lot of it. Thus the movie has become known as Turkish Star Wars, despite actually being called The Man Who Saves the World. There’s no scrolling story here, though, just a man rambling on and on… and on. Something about Earth being destroyed by nuclear war (cue the scene of the Death Star blowing up Alderaan), then, uhm… I guess there’s another Earth? A part of blown up Earth that people somehow survived on and said “Hey, this is Earth now”? It all gets really confusing here (this is within the first 3 minutes), because the man keeps talking about Earth blowing up and Earth being saved, and the evil wizard trying to blow up Earth but he can’t find Earth, and all of this is being said while you see Alderaan explode like 5 fucking times. You’ll want to chalk this up to maybe some sort of language barrier, where the correct words were lost in translation. However, you should be made aware that at a screening in Austin with live, translated dialogue, the translator informed everyone that “it doesn’t make any more sense in Turkish.”
Once the babbling ends, or maybe while it’s still going on, I kind of tuned it out after a while, we see our two heroes, Murat (played by Cüneyt Arkin, star of every Turkish movie ever, who I’m going to call Chips, thanks to his resemblance to Erik Estrada) and Ali (Aytekin Akkaya, who I’m going to call Other Chips, because who cares), traversing space in their… TIE Fighter? X-Wing? What fucking Star Wars ship are they flying? Why are they attacking both the Death Star AND the Millennium Falcon? Why are they being attacked by both TIE Fighters and X-Wings? Wait, was that an Imperial Shuttle? The answer to all of these questions is pretty simple, really – yes. Just… yes. So anyway, these two idiots are flying and shooting at everyone, apparently, and when you’re just two guys fighting the entire rest of space, you’re probably going to get shot down. Except.. they didn’t get shot down? They were pulled down by some sort of tractor beam or something? Whatever the case, they both end up on land, emerging from under rocks. A remote planet of some sort that looks astonishingly like Turkey.
Once Chips confirms that Other Chips is ok, the two of them start trying to figure out where the hell they are. They walk and walk, and based off of what they’ve seen (which consists of rocks, and only rocks), they somehow decide that maybe they’re on a planet inhabited only by women. Makes sense if you don’t think about it. Apparently Other Chips is a ladies man, and has a special tune that he whistles that makes the ladies come running, like some sort of Pied Piper, so he blasts this whistle out at decibel levels that absolutely can not be accomplished by humans. Turns out, Other Chips must have whistled the wrong tune, because instead of ladies… they get angry men on horseback in shitty skeleton costumes. Oh, they’re supposed to be skeletons on horseback, got it. Naturally our heroes dispense of these goons with relative ease, even though the 5 of them that first show up somehow keep re-spawning and they turn into like 15 guys. After the second or third time that Chips and Other Chips grab a skeleton’s spear and pull him off of his horse, you’ll wonder why these skeletons don’t just throw their spears and end this whole charade. Don’t question that!
Eventually, Nimrod the evil wizard (Hikmet Tasdemir, known for his mustache) shows up, tells them he pulled them down to this planet (which may or may not be Earth, I’m still pretty unclear on that), and takes them to what I guess is supposed to be a fighting arena, though there are no walls or anything to prevent people from just going “Nope, I’m walking over there and not doing this.” Being the badass intergalactic dudes that they are, Chips and Other Chips fight off hordes of skeleton men, oversized, faceless Elmos, and some other weird, nondescript, bullshit “monsters”. Oh, and when they fight, the main theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark plays. Every time. Apparently Nimrod is actually from Earth, and is 1,000 years old. Contrary to what the rambling man in the beginning told us, Nimrod has never been able to defeat Earth because of… brain molecules? Human will? Some shit like that. Chaos breaks out once Chips and Other Chips kick some ass, and they run away and hide in a cave, after being flagged down by a woman (Füsun Uçar, from such other films as…uhm…let me get back to you on that) and child. Turns out there are people hiding in caves, and the man that appears to be their leader is a wise old man, who I think was named Wise Old Man. If he wasn’t, he is now. Wise Old Man (Hüseyin Peyda, who you probably don’t know from Turkish Rambo) rehashes the story about the brain molecules, and free will, and I don’t fucking know. This is also where the love story begins to bloom – as we know from his awesome whistle song, Other Chips is quite the ladies man, so he gets a little flirty with the woman that brought them into the cave. Naturally, she is unable to resist his charms and becomes deeply infatuated with Chips. That’s right, the other guy. We know that she loves him because she smiles at him. A lot. Seriously. That’s it.
At some point, there are zombie mummy things that attack the cave, and kill a bunch of children (by kill, of course, I mean scratch their faces, which apparently kills these incredibly weak children). Evil Space Wizard Nimrod drinks their blood to enhance his immortality (through a twisty straw, naturally), so I guess he’s a vampire? After this attack, Chips and Other Chips are pretty pissed so they train to do some more fighting. By punching rocks. Then lifting rocks. Then kicking rocks that explode upon impact. Karate chop a rock in half! After that goes on for way longer than it should, Chips decides it’s leg day, so he ties a couple of boulders to his legs, and bounces all over the place like the ground is made out of trampolines. I really wish this was the most ridiculous scene in the movie. After all of that sweet training, they head off to the local pub, which, you guessed it, is basically the Mos Eisley Cantina, complete with a band playing weird, jazzy tunes. Typical Mos Eisley shenanigans lead to a brawl, Sesame Street monsters show up, punch, kick, jump, punch, kick, jump. Nimrod appears out of nowhere and captures them again. Damn you, Nimrod!
Now, Nimrod is no nimrod, and realizes that these two are pretty badass. I mean, they keep beating up his Muppet monsters, so they must be pretty tough. While he sends the queen to seduce Other Chips, he tries to get all buddy buddy with Chips, and offers him the chance to rule over Earth if he joins him. See, Nimrod has a golden brain that has all of Earth’s knowledge, he just needs a real brain. After Chips tells him to kick rocks, Nimrod shows him that he has the smiley woman and her kid in custody. Chips is pissed! After all the smiles exchanged, he and that woman are deeply in love! Enter some more stupid goddamn monsters to fight. Meanwhile, Other Chips may as well be listening to Barry White with the queen, and just as he’s about to kiss her, she vanishes aaaannnd… stupid fucking monsters! He beats them up, joins Chips to beat up his stupid monsters, and then some weird guys with laser arms capture our heroes AGAIN. After unsuccessfully torturing the pals, Nimrod sends Chips to fight against the most powerful monster he has in his arsenal, who I guess is called Dragon. He looks pretty menacing, that is if you’re frightened by a man in an costume that is too big for him to walk properly with ribbons for fingernails. Chips somersaults over him so many fucking times that he defeats him, and runs off with the woman and kid. Other Chips is still being held captive by a couple of telephone cords wrapped around his head.
Chips goes back to the cave, at which point Wise Old Man tells him about a magical sword that was made by the 13th Tribe thousands of years ago. During the course of this conversation, we learn that all inhabitants of Earth were Muslim (take that, Fox News!), and they were keepers of knowledge, and peace, and something with the Quran, and… I don’t know. Stop rambling, Wise Old Man. Oh, when the nuclear war happened, Jesus lead the Muslims underground. Let’s not forget that. We also learn that smiley woman hasn’t been able to talk since Wise Old Man hid the magical sword, because she knows where it is. While they head off to yet another cave to find this magical sword, Other Chips is still being tortured by telephone cords. Of course he’s got a strong will, and Nimrod can’t break him down. Chips finds the sword (and a brain in a box) guarded by two golden ninjas. After a non-5 minute fight, he grabs the sword, tucks the brain in his shirt, and smiley girl talks. I don’t even know what she says, who gives a shit. With the power of the sword, or Grayskull, or whatever, Chips goes and sets his friend free. Apparently Other Chips can beat up Muppets, but taking telephone cords off of his head is too much to ask. On their way to fight more stupid monsters, Other Chips gets jealous of the sweet cardboard sword, and knocks out Chips by pushing him or something. The dude can take punch after punch from fluffy monsters, but I guess a human touch is enough to send him down. Now that he has the sword and the brain (which he somehow knew was in Chips’ shirt), Other Chips is off to slay the wizard.
As you can probably guess, there’s a lesson to be learned about being greedy and stealing your friend’s sword. Nimrod tricks Other Chips, because he’s an idiot, and manages to touch the sword and the brain. Apparently just by touching these things, he now has the power to defeat Earth, so way to drop the ball, Other Chips! Yet AGAIN, Chips, Other Chips, the fucking smiling woman, and her damn kid are held captive. Other Chips tries to escape, through a wall and gets blown up. As he’s dying, Chips makes sure to console him by telling him how good he is with the ladies, and he can’t die because he needs to be good with the ladies. Sadly, Other Chips doesn’t pull through. Deeply distraught by the passing of his friend, Chips decides to melt the sword and the brain, shoves his hands in the scalding hot liquid that would likely kill him, and when he pulls his hands out, he has magical gold gauntlets! And boots. Somehow there are boots. He sets out to find the wizard, and along the way has to do so many fucking somersaults over monsters that at this point, you’re positive that the ground is nothing but a huge trampoline. After unleashing his deadly somersaults on his foes, Chips eventually finds his way to the wizard. The final battle for the fate of Earth… or what’s left of Earth, or pieces of Earth, or a globe, I don’t know. After seeing so many 10 minute long battles with Gossamer from Looney Tunes, you grab your popcorn and settle in for what you’re sure is going to be a 5 hour long endeavor, only to have the battle end in like a minute, when Chips karate chops Nimrod in half. That’s right, this 1,000 year old wizard, who now has the power to destroy earth, is karate chopped in half by a bouncy Erik Estrada impostor wearing golden mittens.
After saving Earth, which is maybe the planet that he’s already on, Chips is ready to go back home… to Earth. He tells smiley girl and the kid that he loves them both very much, and finally, a kiss! He kisses the little boy on the head, doesn’t even touch the woman. Pretty sure he’s gonna get a visit from Chris Hansen. Then he gets in the Millennium Falcon, which you’ll recall he was earlier trying to destroy, and heads out, finally freeing you from the constraints of this film. As Yoda once said after defeating a Cylon in the Quidditch World Cup, live long and prosper.
As far as I know, there was never an official DVD release of this, but there are still plenty of DVDs floating around. Gather up a group of unsuspecting friends, and prepare to have them either laugh or hate you. Maybe both.
From The Projection Room 